Quote:
II
The farm was less than a hundred yards from the wood's edge. The wall of trees formed the fourth side to the open quadrangle. The house faced the wood. With tangled emotions, Syson noted the plum blossom falling on the profuse, coloured primroses, which he himself had brought here and set. How they had increased! There were thick tufts of scarlet, and pink, and pale purple primroses under the plum trees. He saw somebody glance at him through the kitchen window, heard men's voices.
The door opened suddenly: very womanly she had grown! He felt himself going pale.
"You?--Addy!" she exclaimed, and stood motionless.
"Who?" called the farmer's voice. Men's low voices answered. Those low voices, curious and almost jeering, roused the tormented spirit in the visitor. Smiling brilliantly at her, he waited.
"Myself--why not?" he said.
The flush burned very deep on her cheek and throat.
"We are just finishing dinner," she said.
"Then I will stay outside." He made a motion to show that he would sit on the red earthenware pipkin that stood near the door among the daffodils, and contained the drinking water.
"Oh no, come in," she said hurriedly. He followed her. In the doorway, he glanced swiftly over the family, and bowed.
Everyone was confused. The farmer, his wife, and the four sons sat at the coarsely laid dinner-table, the men with arms bare to the elbows.
"I am sorry I come at lunch-time," said Syson.
"Hello, Addy!" said the farmer, assuming the old form of address, but his tone cold. "How are you?"
And he shook hands.
"Shall you have a bit?" he invited the young visitor, but taking for granted the offer would be refused. He assumed that Syson was become too refined to eat so roughly. The young man winced at the imputation.
"Have you had any dinner?" asked the daughter.
"No," replied Syson. "It is too early. I shall be back at half-past one."
"You call it lunch, don't you?" asked the eldest son, almost ironical. He had once been an intimate friend of this young man.
"We'll give Addy something when we've finished," said the mother, an invalid, deprecating.
"No--don't trouble. I don't want to give you any trouble," said Syson.
"You could allus live on fresh air an' scenery," laughed the youngest son, a lad of nineteen.
Syson went round the buildings, and into the orchard at the back of the house, where daffodils all along the hedgerow swung like yellow, ruffled birds on their perches. He loved the place extraordinarily, the hills ranging round, with bear-skin woods covering their giant shoulders, and small red farms like brooches clasping their garments; the blue streak of water in the valley, the bareness of the home pasture, the sound of myriad-threaded bird-singing, which went mostly unheard. To his last day, he would dream of this place, when he felt the sun on his face, or saw the small handfuls of snow between the winter twigs, or smelt the coming of spring.
Hilda was very womanly. In her presence he felt constrained. She was twenty-nine, as he was, but she seemed to him much older. He felt foolish, almost unreal, beside her. She was so static. As he was fingering some shed plum blossom on a low bough, she came to the back door to shake the table-cloth. Fowls raced from the stackyard, birds rustled from the trees. Her dark hair was gathered up in a coil like a crown on her head. She was very straight, distant in her bearing.
As she folded the cloth, she looked away over the hills.
Presently Syson returned indoors. She had prepared eggs and curd cheese, stewed gooseberries and cream.
"Since you will dine to-night," she said, "I have only given you a light lunch."
"It is awfully nice," he said. "You keep a real idyllic atmosphere--your belt of straw and ivy buds."
Still they hurt each other.
He was uneasy before her. Her brief, sure speech, her distant bearing, were unfamiliar to him. He admired again her grey-black eyebrows, and her lashes. Their eyes met. He saw, in the beautiful grey and black of her glance, tears and a strange light, and at the back of all, calm acceptance of herself, and triumph over him.
He felt himself shrinking. With an effort he kept up the ironic manner.
She sent him into the parlour while she washed the dishes. The long low room was refurnished from the Abbey sale, with chairs upholstered in claret-coloured rep, many years old, and an oval table of polished walnut, and another piano, handsome, though still antique. In spite of the strangeness, he was pleased. Opening a high cupboard let into the thickness of the wall, he found it full of his books, his old lesson-books, and volumes of verse he had sent her, English and German. The daffodils in the white window-bottoms shone across the room, he could almost feel their rays. The old glamour caught him again. His youthful water-colours on the wall no longer made him grin; he remembered how fervently he had tried to paint for her, twelve years before.
She entered, wiping a dish, and he saw again the bright, kernel-white beauty of her arms.
"You are quite splendid here," he said, and their eyes met.
"Do you like it?" she asked. It was the old, low, husky tone of intimacy. He felt a quick change beginning in his blood. It was the old, delicious sublimation, the thinning, almost the vaporizing of himself, as if his spirit were to be liberated.
"Aye," he nodded, smiling at her like a boy again. She bowed her head.
I separated each speaker and the paragraphs to make it easier to read and observe just what is going on. Basically this is the first meeting of Hilda and Syson again and Hilda's family is present, at least part of the time. It is an interesting first meeting I think, and there are many clues as to further our idea of Syson living in his fantasy world of the past.
